Con artists are increasingly creating fake online profiles and tricking people on dating sites into handing over often large sums of money.

One of the most common techniques is to build up trust with the person by messaging for weeks or even months before suddenly having an emergency - the fake person being mugged but their daughter needing urgent surgery, for example - and asking for money.

If you find the picture is a fake, report the profile to the dating site immediately.

Watch out for inconsistencies and repetition too - if you’re talking to a team of scammers, they’re bound to forget what’s previously been said and slip-up occasionally.

Not long after, Jane discovered an ex-colleague nearby had been scammed by the same man at the same time and she’d had a very lucky escape.

So what can you do to avoid being a victim of an online dating scam?

The male profile is in his late 40s (48 is the most common age) with a high income.

He presents himself as a widower, with a degree and of average height (5’10”).

And a lot of the time, you’re not just talking to one person behind each profile - you could be exchanging messages with a circle of fraudsters acting together, according to KIS Finance.

I'm pretty lenient on my criteria too so it is not because I was too picky.

Around 7.8 million UK adults used online dating sites in 2016, up from just 100,000 in 2000.

But she was feeling vulnerable after the breakdown of her marriage and agreed to transfer him a smaller amount, despite admitting it sounded “crazy”.

It was only when her money transfer was blocked due to a security alert around the man’s name that she realised something was wrong.